


There's a Silky Moon Up in the Sky

by LassieLowrider



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: F/M, Genderqueer Crowley (Good Omens), Idiots in Love, Other, crowley presents as a woman for the entirety of this, from idiots to lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-10
Updated: 2019-09-10
Packaged: 2020-10-14 02:40:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20593331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LassieLowrider/pseuds/LassieLowrider
Summary: For the love of a child, Crowley will do pretty much anything. For the love of Crowley, Aziraphale will do anything.or,the author has Feelings about children and the love there-of, so writes soft things





	There's a Silky Moon Up in the Sky

**Author's Note:**

  * For [juiceboxjellyfish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/juiceboxjellyfish/gifts).

> I don't own anything of this, y'all
> 
> title from Queen's A Winter's Tale

There’s a demon rocking a babe to sleep, turning in place and skirts ever so softly brushing the floor with every sway of her hips. In the doorway stands an angel, watching she who should be his adversary, holding the child who will bring about the end of everything he knows, sees the two of them crowned in silver moonlight, and his heart is full to bursting.

The child, small as he is, snuffles into her neck, tiny hands grasping at her collar - she’s got one arm wrapped under him, the other over, hand (so gently it almost hurts to look at) holding the back of his head, thumb stroking the downy hair in soothing motions. She’s humming as she sways, an old lullaby no now living human knows of, and Aziraphale feels a sharp pang of longing for towns turned to ash thousands of years ago.

She senses him, must’ve, because the humming stops and luminously golden eyes, slitted pupils for once not hidden behind dark glasses, open before narrowing at him. The arms holding the child tighten, and she turns, places herself between him and the babe. Aziraphale falters, almost reconsiders, but still reaches out, imploring, and when she doesn’t pull back he takes a step further into the room, and then another.

Crowley, meanwhile, only watches the angel come closer, can’t help but draw herself tighter around the child - the Antichrist, the Destroyer of Worlds, the child they’ve committed to stopping. The child she already loves like she’s loved no other. The child they’d discussed  _ killing _ . She won’t let any harm come to him, not because he is the Antichrist and she a demon, but because he is a child and she can’t help but loving him - the smell of him, the gummy smile he gives when seeing her in the morning, the snuffling breaths he takes when just about asleep. 

Aziraphale reaches out, hand hovering over her shoulder, the other hanging by his side. She gives him a long, searching look, before taking a small step forward, letting his hand come to rest where it was headed. He raises the other hand, brings it to her hip, the child hidden between them. She knows it’s for her own benefit more than anything, knows that he hasn’t yet formed the attachment - for an angel, he finds it difficult to start loving; for a demon, she finds it difficult to stop.

“I will not let any harm come to you, either of you,” he says, and for a moment she sees why he’d been trusted to guard the Eastern Gate. There’s a righteous fury burning in him, but no demon has feared fire since the fall - ashes do not burn, and fire can only turn fire brighter. She would never fear him for her sake, and now she won’t fear him for the child, either. She loves him, she truly does, but for the sake of a child she would forsake him. He knows that, even if he doesn’t know the depth of her feelings for him.

Years pass. She settles into her role as the nanny, the governess, moonlighting - quite literally - in the garden; Aziraphale may have guarded The Garden, but he never quite figured out the point of green thumbs. Like him, she has a day a week off, any day of her choosing - she always picks Sundays, and so does Aziraphale; both of them claiming, independently of each other, it’s for church. The household staff, as well as the couple Dowling, all has their own thoughts about what the governess and the gardener get up to - most if not all has seen the gentle hand he lends with the child, has seen the slightly smitten smile she sends him when he’s not looking. 

They do spend their days off together, but not as the household staff thinks. Three years on, it’s getting harder and harder for Aziraphale to convince Crowley to leave the child where he is, to not kidnap him - it’s getting harder and harder for him to think that not kidnapping him is the right course of action, too.

“The bastard  _ slapped  _ him yesterday, angel!” She is incandescent in her rage, has a hard time controlling her corporation - voice growing ever more sibilant, a sinuous twist to her limbs that usually isn’t there. He, himself, is ready to pick up a long-since forgotten sword, but someone has to keep a cool head in this situation, and she is critically unable to. “We swore we would keep him from harm!”

“We  _ can’t  _ take him, dear, they’re keeping track of him, they would know,” he implores, ready to fall to his knees and pray her forgiveness. He loves the child, of course he does, but not - not like she does, and not like he loves her. “In a heartbeat I would take him if only it was safe.”

She knows he is right, knows it isn’t safe for any of them - she and Aziraphale would have to live, looking over their shoulders, and Warlock is the Antichrist. Protected from occult entities, yes, but they would know if he disappeared and would leave no stone unturned. She wilts, like the flowers he tend to.

“He hit my child, Aziraphale, and I can’t protect him,” she says, quietly, as if hoping he won’t hear. He stands so close it would be impossible to stop him hearing, just as impossible as it is to stop him from gathering her into his arms when she breaks down crying. He sways, trying to soothe, like he has seen her sway with the child countless times. She cries herself to sleep in his arms, and his heart is breaking. He loves her more than he’ll ever let her know, would do anything for her, but he will not let her risk her own existence for the Antichrist. 

He won’t have to.

Three years on, the countdown to the apocalypse ticking past the five years marḱ - but only barely, it’s a late Saturday evening when Crowley, still in full Nanny getup, comes bursting into the gardener shed. Aziraphale, not expecting her until the morning after, stands up in a hurry, just barely getting his bearings before she’s in his arms. Her arms are locked around his neck, she’s pressed against him from head to toe, the round glasses she’s wearing are digging uncomfortably into his neck, and she’s talking, babbling something at a speed more like what Warlock usually manages than her usual well-thought out sentences. He registers all this, somewhere in the back of his brain, but all he can focus on is how she feels, pressed against him like this, in the first embrace she’s ever initiated. 

“Are you even listening, angel?!” she interrupts herself to say, pulling back slightly to see his face. She notices the way his arms tighten around her at first, reluctant to let her pull away, filing that information away for a day when matters at hand aren’t quite as pressing.

“Oh. No, sorry dear, I don’t think I was.” He shakes himself out of the distraction, releasing her from the embrace he had unwittingly let go on a bit longer than either of them meant to. “What were you saying?”

“Warlock has  _ chicken pox _ , Aziraphale,” she says, hands coming up to clutch at his lapels, eyes wide with excitement behind the customary dark lenses. His own eyes widen to match as it dawns on him.

“Chicken pox…? But that means…” he mumbles, hands on her hips, thumbs absentmindedly rubbing circles into the velvet of her dress. She notices it, tucks it away with the tightening of his arms, saves it for a day when things are as they should.

“That means Warlock isn’t the Antichrist. It’s the  _ wrong child _ , angel.”

Aziraphale has a brief flash of panic - they’ve lost the Antichrist - before it hits him again. If Warlock isn’t the Antichrist, then - he’s just a human child. A human child disappearing, that’s not something Heaven  _ or  _ Hell can track. A human child is - easy, to fake.

“Well. Well. We will need a golem, an escape route and - we’ll need an excuse for Above  _ and  _ Below, when they figure it out,” he trails off, pulls away, turns around - expecting her to follow, knowing she will. She doesn’t, not immediately. Instead, she stands, handfallen. She watches him, a cautious hope growing in her heart, showing on her face. 

Abruptly, she loves him even more. This angel, who she has loved and indulged for six thousand years, this angel who so steadfastly holds to Heavenly edicts - this angel who is now planning to kidnap a child, simply because she loves that child. A favour, a gesture, she did not have to ask for, because he  _ knew _ . 

They plan, through the night. They have some time yet, Warlock will need to be healthy before they can go on an outing - where Warlock will go out with Nanny, and where Nanny will come back with a child that  _ looks like  _ Warlock. Once ‘Warlock’ is returned to the Dowling residence, Nanny will sadly have to resign, effective immediately - her sister, you know, fallen deathly ill, and it is far to Inverness. 

What happens is this:

Warlock and Nanny - the woman who has raised him, the woman he’s called  _ mummy  _ more than his actual mother - will go to the zoo. When Nanny lifts Warlock up, to let him see the lions better, she starts whispering to him - knows that the two of them are under supervision, has seen the bodyguard out of the corner of her eye. When she tells him  _ you’re not going back _ , Warlock starts crying, clutching at her even tighter. 

What no one knows is that for the past three years, Warlock has written in every letter to Santa (said in every prayer, whispered in the ear of every stuffed animal, wished on every dandelion he’s seen) that all he wants is for Nanny to be his mummy for real. 

It happens like this: 

Crowley brings Warlock into a restroom, says the child is having a bit of a meltdown - in the restroom, there’s Aziraphale, holding a sleeping child that looks identical to Warlock - down to every last cell, the child is. A golem, a miracle all on its own, that will grow and age and behave just like Warlock. 

Demon and angel, co-conspirators, hereditary enemies and friends above all, will switch children - a look-alike brought back to the Dowlings, and the real child, the child who Crowley adores above all else, will be brought to a flat in Mayfair.

At the Dowlings’, Nanny will make her excuses, resign and leave, all in the space of a few hours. A few days later, so will the gardener - the household staff will smile in secret, titter with each other over tea, and to a one, none is surprised.

When Warlock, the real child, wakes up again, it is in a small cottage in the South Downs, just outside Bepton. He’ll go to school in Bepton, he’ll make friends for the first time, and he’ll come home to a house full of love.

Three weeks later, when Warlock has settled and started truly believing that this, this is  _ real _ , and when demon and angel both have a true hope that they actually got away with it, Crowley tucks the child into bed, kisses his forehead, and by the time she reaches the door he’s fast asleep.

She stops in the doorway, turns around, and for a moment she just - watches. There is a prickle of celestial energy, and she knows, without looking, that Aziraphale has come to a halt just behind her, not much more than a hair’s breadth between them.

“Maybe, we only get five years,” he finally breaks the silence, the ominous sentence not one she wanted to hear but she’s not surprised he’s saying it. She’s not ready for how he continues it. “But if I get to spend the five years with you and him, it will be the happiest five years in my existence.”

She’s not aware she’s moving until she’s already turned around and buried her face in his neck, hands clutching desperately at the arms of his jacket. With surprise, she realises the weird noise is coming from her, a keen high in her throat. He wraps his arms around her, makes sure they won’t wake Warlock, and lets her cry.

She cries, proper full-on sobbing, the kind of ugly crying even humans are ashamed of, and he lets her, not saying anything, only letting out small, soothing noises. 

When she pulls back, wiping at her cheeks, glasses long since discarded, he smiles at her, fondness tinged with slight nervousness.

“I love you, my dear, and if you do not love me the same, just know that I will no matter what be by your side.” Now, Aziraphale expected a lot of reactions to that - but not that her tears would begin anew. He decided to take it as a good sign that she threw herself into his arms again, instead of turning away.

“I have loved you, Aziraphale,” she begins, leaning back slightly to wipe at her face - again, she can’t remember when she last cried like this. It’s rare she uses his name when speaking to him, rarer still the way she locks her eyes onto his - less rare is how fascinating, lovely and bewitching he finds her, serpentine eyes and all. “I have loved you since the day you lifted a wing to shelter a demon from the first rain, and I haven’t ever  _ stopped  _ loving you.”

She raises her hand, tacky with drying tears, and lays it softly, so softly his heart aches, against his cheek. Thumb stroking his cheekbone, slow motions back and forth, for a long moment they just look at one another. Later, neither will know who leaned in first, who first gasped and who first deepened the kiss, but in a cottage in the South Downs, a bit outside Bepton, an angel and a demon are kissing, the first time of many.

In the days and years to come, times will be hard; an Apocalypse is approaching. But for now…

A demon tucks a child into bed, stroking his back and humming ever so softly - a lullaby not heard for so long no now living human remembers it, she sits on the edge of the bed until he falls asleep. When she rises, as quietly as she can, it doesn’t take more than a few steps to bring her into the arms of the angel she loves. 

Standing in the middle of the room, the two ethereal beings locked in an embrace and crowned in silver moonlight, the demon cannot bring herself to regret her fall, for it has brought her happiness above all else.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr @ isauntervaguelydownwards


End file.
